Twisted Angel
by Widgetmarsh
Summary: What if Buffy met Angelus FOR THE FIRST TIME in mid-season Three? Would she accept his offer for an alliance to stop the Ascension? Would they still fall in love? *ON HIATUS*
1. A New Arrival In Sunnyhell

**TITLE**: Twisted Angel. 

**AUTHOR**: Kelly Rowe 

**EMAIL**: angels_bath_towel@hotmail.com

**RATING**: NC-17 - at least it will be eventually.

** DISCLAIMER**: Buffy, Angel and all other characters (except those I make up) are the absolute property of Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy, UPN and Warner Bros (If I owned them, do you think that they would be acting this ridiculous right now). 

** SUMMARY**: What if Buffy met Angelus FOR THE FIRST TIME in mid-season Three? Would she accept his offer for an alliance to stop the Ascension? Would they still fall in love? 

** SPOILERS**: Anything is game.

** TIMELINE**: Season 3 BTVS and onwards. 

** DISTRIBUTION**: You want you can have it; just tell me where you put it. Any Yahoo lists and DMCA just take it. My site: 

** PAIRING**: Buffy/Angelus, Willow/Oz, Cordy/Xander, Giles/Jenny.

** CATEGORY**: Challenge fic from The Dark Magick Challenge Awards. 

* * *

**_Part 1_**

The Hellmouth has for all time, since the commencement of creation, been a consecrated place for demons and other such creatures to congregate and as you would expect, it has also been the place for some to endeavor to take over the world. None had ever been truly successful in their attempts and any would be world conquerors had been vanquished in the last few years by the Watcher's Council's latest and greatest weapon - the slayer. Angelus however was not in the slightest bit apprehensive about his trip to The Hellmouth; he after all had neither goal in mind - congregation or world domination - he merely wanted to rule over The Hellmouth itself. It was his supreme dream and as far as he was concerned his next utmost triumph, he didn't care about the slayer - by all accounts the strongest of all time or not - if she got in his way then she would simply die by his hand. After all he had never met a slayer that he could not kill - how else would he have been able to earn himself the prestigious title of 'The Slayer Killer.'

Angelus leisurely wandered around the so-called downtown area of his new home, wordlessly watching the naively vapid inhabitants walk around ignorant to the dangers - and the creatures - that surrounded them just out of reach in the darkness. He was reasonably certain that he could simply reach out and drain some inconsequential passer-by and that none of the other human sheep would even bat an eye at his behavior. Many questions disseminated through his mind at what he had so far ascertained about Sunnydale. Had the townspeople grown complacent due to the presence of the slayer? Did they even realize just what their sleepy, little town was built upon? A feeling that he had within him told him that it was the latter and that he would have very little problems in the pursuit of his goal.

Spying out of the corner of his watchful eye a throng of teenagers moving away from the crowd and the main street of Sunnydale. Thinking that they might make a quick and easy dinner he followed without a sound behind them. A couple of blocks later he witnessed them - and many others like them - entering a small, dingy looking building. Angelus guessed that it was a club of sorts as he watched the building pulsate with the beat of the loud music coming from inside. Taking a step closer he was assaulted by the amalgamation of body heat, hormones and pheromones swirling around him from the club and causing every nerve in his long dead body to tingle with anticipation. Throwing caution to the wind he entered the club, telling himself that he wasn't losing grip on the blood lust - he was simply checking out a potential new hunting ground and if he happened to pick up an entertaining little snack while he was there, so be it.

The instant he was through the door, his senses were almost overloaded and he had to force himself not to vamp out like some untutored fledgling. Unhurriedly he moved around the outskirts of the club, feeling the eyes of the teenaged girls - and to his amusement some of the teenaged guys - on him, mentally stripping him of his tight leather and silk clothing. Silently he began to survey the brunettes looking for a *dinner* companion, all of a sudden he spotted the perfect one dancing with an ungainly looking boy. He stalked self-confidently towards the young couple, knowing that it would not be hard to get the girl to abandon her companion for a promised filled evening with him, besides if the boy made a pest of himself it would in all honesty be nothing to dispose of him. When he was almost there, the couple moved off of the dance floor and over to a group of teenagers sitting a small table just out of his sight.

Angelus speedily took a seat and adjusted the angle his viewing and all thoughts of the brunette flew out of his habitually assiduous mind as he caught espy of a petite blond sitting with the group. He wasn't sure exactly why she had caught his discriminatory eye, the truth was that there wasn't anything remarkable about her looks and besides, blonds had always been the soul's thing; the demon within had always preferred a darker sort of beauty. However he had to inwardly admit that for the first time in almost two and a half centuries he was attracted to a blond - his sire, Darla hadn't counted; she was his sire and sex was a part of the deal no matter what the level of attraction. 

He just couldn't bring himself to look away from her; this young teenager seemed to have some power over him. Not that he was complaining, it was logically better to fuck your food before you ate it anyway and another glance at the blond's athletic looking body guaranteed him it would be one hell of a meal. It was at that moment that his anticipated victim looked up and over in his direction. As she climbed up from her table and moved towards him, he couldn't help but smirk over the fact that his prey for the evening was aggressively seeking him out. So it was a definite ego deflator when she strolled right past him as if he didn't even exist.

Dangerously pissed off at the turn of events, Angelus followed the diminutive blond outside of the club, indomitable to get what he wanted; instead he received a shock. In the alleyway besides the club his impending victim was kicking the shit out of one of his brethren. There was only one viable explanation for this; his tiny blond victim was in fact the slayer - the purportedly most powerful slayer to ever walk this earth. Behind the perceptible disbelief that played throughout his mind, there was a curiosity aroused - actually there was a hell of a lot more than just his curiosity aroused. This slayer seemed to be different than the others who had come before her and it was most definitely going to be a *pleasure* - his pleasure - to be the one to bring her to her knees. With a dramatic flick of his leather duster in the cool night breeze, Angelus turned on his heel and walked away to find another meal, while he plotted the downfall of this slayer.

* * *

Buffy looked up from her last slay just in time to observe the hottie from inside The Bronze walk away. It was apparent - well hopefully - that he had not seen her fight the vampire or seen the body exploding into dust mere seconds after she had plunged Mr. Pointy through the vampire's unbeating heart. She heaved a sigh to herself as she brushed the dust from her stylish, sexy and yet slayage practical outfit and re-entered the cramped club, making her way over to her very coupled friends. They were so involved with each other that they hadn't even noticed that she had even returned. Sighing once again, Buffy turned her attention away from them and to the crowd hoping to find a little demonic action to keep her occupied while the others were busy, but no such luck everyone and everything seemed in safe hands and under control. Making a split-second decision, she grabbed her jacket and purse and went to leave. Subconsciously she knew she was only doing this in the hopes that one of them would look up and ask her to stay - hell at this point she'd even take a fucking acknowledgement of her existence - but they didn't. Buffy didn't even bother to say goodbye as she stepped out once more alone into the cold, dark night.

Deciding to funnel her ever mounting dissatisfaction into something beneficial, Buffy decided to do a quick sweep through Sunny Rest memorial park before she headed home to a dark, empty house. Regrettably she did not get to vent any of her frustrations on some unsuspecting evil; the burial ground was even deader than usual with not even the hint of a newly risen fledgling. Heaving a colossal sigh she kicked the adjoining grave marker, breaking the not-so fragile stone in half; after making certain that no one - living or undead - had seen her desecrate a grave, she rushed home.

Since her mother was once again out of town on another God-forsaken business trip, she let herself in the front door and discarded her belongings in the customarily pristine front hall. Stretching her over-used muscles, Buffy climbed the stairs towards her tasteful and airy bedroom. Removing her jacket, she moved over towards her dresser pausing temporarily to grab herself a pair of pajamas. Breaking with her familiar habits, she stripped down to her underwear in her room rather than trudge down the hall to the bathroom, tonight she was just too fatigued and perturbed with life in general to go to the trouble of repetitive habits. Pulling on a pair of black satin pajama pants, she undid her plain white cotton sports bra and wriggled her way into a blood red cotton tank top - the type she favored for sleeping in. Yanking back the pastel floral bed cover, Buffy climbed into the queen-sized bed and was more or less asleep before her head even hit her pillow.

Unfortunately her sleep was not a serene one, as she tossed and turned as a new nightmare rolled through her unconscious mind. Images of hellfire and brimstone enclosed her, the smell was very nearly overwhelming and she could feel the sweat roll off of her from the intense heat. Spinning around in circles, she spotted the hottie from The Bronze standing in the midst of some ashes beckoning to her, wanting her to come to him. She was sorely tempted to do just that, but something was stopping her, holding her back from him. An abrupt glance back over her shoulder showed her that it was Giles holding onto her with a vice-like grip, shaking his very proper British head at her imprudent impulse. Suddenly he let her go and before she could make it towards the man of her dreams, the ground beneath her tiny feet began to tremor and she was knocked onto her ass. Watching the scene unfolding before her eyes in silent fear, Buffy witnessed the earth directly in front of her open up and a gargantuan - bigger and fiercer than anything she had ever seen - snake-like creature burst forth with its mouth agape.

Her own scream pulled her from the nightmarish scene and she lay there in the dark of her room trying to regain some semblance of calm. After a few moments she sat up, flipped on the bed-side lamp and grabbed the notebook and pen Giles made her keep close by for occasions such as this. Buffy began to document the nightmare in as much detail as she could recall, so that in the morning Giles could research the meaning of it and work out if it was some horror movie induced fantasy or a vision of things to come. Eventually she lay back down and closed her eyes in a vain attempt to sleep; unfortunately it was almost dawn before sleep found her.

* * *

Buffy was disrespectfully awoken a few inadequate hours later by the shrill, unrelenting ringing of the telephone extension in her room. Groaning audibly she reached across and grasped a hold of the receiver. "What?"

"Good morning to you too, Buffy," a clipped British tone replied somewhat sardonically.

Buffy sighed and attempted to readjust her tone of voice, "Hey Giles."

"Do you mind telling me why you missed our seven o'clock training session?"

Buffy groaned once more, "Chill Giles. One missed training session won't matter; I'll simply train harder this afternoon. Besides its Saturday - don't you want to spend the day with Jenny?"

Giles was the one to sigh this time and Buffy could just picture him cleaning his glasses on the other end of the line. "I am well aware of what day it is, but with the Mayor's unknown plot thickening you cannot afford to slack off."

"I know, I know."

"Besides that, you have left me trapped here *alone* with that *abominable* man."

Buffy tried to repress the mirth that threatened to rise up as she pictured the man that Giles was referring too. Mr. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce was purportedly extra help sent by the council to aid the slayer and her watcher in vanquishing or better yet preventing whatever evil the Mayor of Sunnydale had planned for the town. Alas ever since his unanticipated - and unsolicited - arrival a fortnight earlier, he had done nothing but screw up menial tasks, cause offense to everyone and ogle Cordelia Chase's abundant - and most likely surgically modified breasts.

"Okay, give me an hour and I'll be there," she conceded reluctantly.

"You can have thirty minutes," Giles told her as he hung up on her.

Buffy hung up her end of the call and stretched her still sleeping muscles. Achingly she crawled out of her bed and headed slowly down the hall to the bathroom for a shower and other things. All the time she was grumbling about destiny and the lack of sleeping in on weekends.

* * *

TBC...


	2. A Strange Introduction

Part 2

Angelus looked down on the lowly masses as they moved below him while he surveyed his most recent acquisition, The Bronze. He had bought it on a caprice when the subsequent owner had died out of the blue from severe - and perplexing - blood loss and so far it did not seem to be such a flawed investment. As a matter of fact more or less every person under the age of twenty-five - who lived in the immediate vicinity - used the club as a meeting place, a place to chill out and relax, including the slayer and her whiny little friends.

Quaking with unadulterated aversion as he pictured those teenaged losers who dared to try to grasp a place in the slayer's light. He was beyond doubt at a shortfall for words as to why such a accomplished fighter, the strongest and - he had to unenthusiastically divulge - the most desirable slayer on record associated with them. It was unconvinced that she could assert that they were an aid to her in her holy quest - except for maybe the redhead, there was something about her that screamed untapped power - because from what he had heard of the group in action, they hid while she did all of the work.

Casting an additional speedy perusal around the dance floor area of the club, Angelus stilled as two exceedingly familiar forms came into view, Spike and Drusilla. He had yet had to deal with them since they had remained out of his sight since he had announced his claim - uncontested by any - to the throne of the Hellmouth. Regrettably he had known that their seclusion had been a transitory thing and now he would have to take time out of his hectic schedule in order to reeducate his willful childe and grand-childe in the ways of loyalty and obedience. Did they in reality believe that he would forget about what had occurred in Prague just a little over a century ago?

However before the occasion arose for him to brazen out his wayward family he was sidetracked by a tingling feeling shooting straight down his spine and the telltale swish of blond hair that continually accompanied the slayer's presence. Surely enough she - and her puerile friends - were entering the club and he sharpened his gaze upon her athletic figure and growled in both satisfaction and discontentment at the outfit that she had chosen to wear that night. Her tank top was made of a skin-tight material, blood red in color, that somehow managed to shimmer even in the moody lighting of the club, ending just above her navel and it was low-cut enough for him to see the swell of her enticing breasts. Her skirt did not contain much more material than her top and he more or less swallowed his own tongue as she took her seat and it rode up another inch, exposing more of her toned, tanned thigh to his and every other horny male's gaze.

Silently he cursed himself and his overactive hormones over his perverted fascination and attraction to his mortal adversary. Why couldn't this slayer have looked like most of her predecessors, all muscled and butch? It seemed perpetually unmerited that those idiots in the Watcher's Council should gain such a weapon to fight on the side of all things good and pure. There was even a rumor amongst the demon community that she used her feminine charms to aid in her slaying and as he watched her transfixed, he knew that he could not wait another night to find out if the rumor was true. Making eye contact with the human minion he had tending bar, he gave him the signal to deliver a free drink to the slayer; before he walked away to prepare himself for the big meeting.

* * *

Buffy was undeniably not her accustomed vivacious self as she patrolled all twelve of Sunnydale's cemeteries - single-handedly - as per usual. She had tried so relentlessly to break with her typical practice, to pretend to be ordinary and hang out at The Bronze like the rest of Sunnydale's teenaged population, but a amalgamation of things occurring had caused her to head out on patrol only a few minutes after arriving. Her friends and their respective others coupled nature combined with a mysterious drink from the club's new owner and the presence of so many of the undead had given her the need to kill things.

As she headed into the final cemetery on her patrol itinerary, Rest Haven, a peculiar feeling began to boil within the pit of her stomach. It was a feeling that she had felt only once or twice before, firstly was the one time she had seen that sinfully desirable guy at The Bronze just about a month earlier and then again at The Bronze that night just before she had walked out. She glanced around the open area of the cemetery and saw naught around that could possibly be the cause, so she merely shrugged it off as a belated corollary to the pop quiz the new chemistry teacher had given out that afternoon.

Sitting herself down on the nearest headstone, she heaved a sigh at the ennui of slaying during the past few weeks. It seemed as though all of Sunnydale's spine-chilling things were staying out of sight and even though Giles - and that Wesley person - were confident it was due to the mayor and his plans, she was not so sure. However with no proof and disproportionate amounts of energy that she could not work off on the undead, Buffy was having to put in extra hours of training with the British twins. Lately her usual one hour training sessions had been running four or more hours and even with kicking the watcher's collective butts, she was still keyed up with something - or over something yet to come. 

As she sat there in the darkness the feeling within her grew ever more stronger and Buffy looked around just the once more, but this time she saw someone standing off in the vastness; obscured by the darkness and shadows. The individual began to move toward her position and she stood up waiting to engage the character - and probable demon - who was skulking around a graveyard in the dead of night. When the figure had closed to within a few feet of her, Buffy received a surprise. Actually it was more of a bolt from the blue than a surprise, the shady figure was in fact her mystery man from The Bronze.

"Hello?" she called out intending to give him a austere caveat about prowling around Sunnydale unaided at night, someone as scandalously magnificent as him should not be left out to be demon fodder.

The unidentified man disregarded her greeting, simply moving towards her as though she had not even uttered a syllable until he was standing right in front of her. Raking his passionate chocolate brown eyes up and down the length of her diminutive yet nimble frame, he made her feel more ill at ease than her doctor did during her yearly physical examination.

"Hello yourself," he at long last spoke in a timbre that was meant to induce the most hot blooded of fantasies.

Buffy was for a short time bewildered into silence, but she shook off the spell of seduction he had cast upon her. "You shouldn't be out here *alone* at night. It isn't safe."

"And why would that be?" he asked her as he displayed a rakish smirk. 

"There's - uh - gangs," she managed to babble out like some bubble-headed bimbo.

The smirk continued as if he found her entertaining - whether it was her bubble-headedness or her actions she wasn't certain, "If it's that unsafe out here - what are you doing out in the middle of a cemetery alone?"

"Well - " Buffy was stumped. What could she possibly say to his question and not seem like a total moron? "I guess you got me there. I should definitely be at home right now."

He reached out and grasped a hold of her diminutive hand, he felt icy to the touch and someplace in the back of her psyche there was a glimmer of recognition - familiarity - but she could not seize hold of the ephemeral brain wave. Definitely feeling distressed with the sensations that this stranger was evoking within her mind and body, Buffy pulled away from his hand breaking the contact and putting a little bit of much needed expanse between them.

"Scared?"

Buffy opened her mouth to refute the spoken indictment, but as an alternative she found herself nodding more or less indiscernibly. "Maybe just a little bit."

"Advantageous," the handsome stranger acknowledged with his now customary smirk. "Trepidation is a acceptable corollary - some people might even say it was nourishing."

His chocolate brown eyes met with her hazel ones and she felt a pull - a magnetism drawing her in - something within her wanted to simply drown in their heated depths. Shaking him away from her thoughts and breaking the eye contact, she spoke. "What do you want from me?"

He placed his fingers in a pistol-grip upon her stubborn chin, gently forcing her to make eye contact with him once again. "Until now I thought I knew, but - "

"But what?"

The smirk vanished only to be interchanged with an even more devastating half smile which gave a twinkle to his gorgeous eyes. "I guess I may need to alter my plans after all."

Buffy pulled her chin away from his hand and stepped back, putting more distance between them and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. "You are one strange guy."

"You beyond doubt have no concept," he replied, his half smile still plastered athwart his features. Reaching forward he grasped her hand once again and pulled it towards his lips, laying a kiss gently upon it. "Until we meet again."

Buffy watched without a sound - vulnerably - as he sauntered away, her stomach clenched with a edginess that she had not even recognized that she was feeling. Even as she relaxed her body, her mind continued to whirl in an endeavor to handle the out of the ordinary encounter. Despite however many times she thought about it on the way back home, she could come to know conclusions. In the end as she was climbing into her bed, unreservedly fatigued for the first time in weeks, an disconcerting perspicacity settled over her, one that told her that this time she might have just met her match.

* * *

Complaining discontentedly, Buffy traipsed her way into the library of Sunnydale High for an early morning training session before the classes started for the day. As she pushed open the double doors the first thing she saw were piles and piles of demonology books spread out across the table, desk and floor and right in the middle of all the pandemonium sat Giles and his antagonist, Wesley.

"Golly," Buffy said her voice laced with severe derision. "You two are positively party animals, aren't you?"

"For your information Miss. Summers, we were up all night searching for any clue about whatever The Mayor is up to," Wesley answered back in his typical clipped British manner. "A fruitless search so far, I might add."

Giles coughed loudly, "I would not say that - unerringly. We have been able to rule a few things out."

"Such as?" Buffy requested as her probing stare darted between the two men.

"Uh - I doubt that he will attempt to raise Acathla," Giles replied as he took off his glasses and started to polish them with a cloth he removed from the pocket of his tweed jacket. "Or reanimate The Master."

"And I genuinely have reservations that he will allow himself to be turned," Wesley joined in as he tossed a volume about the Order of Aurelius on the table, where it fell open to a page on The Scourge of Europe complete with sketch.

"Remarkable," Buffy responded once again with sarcasm, just before she caught sight of the visual rendering. Moving closer to the varnished oak table on which the book lay, she stared at the sketch recognition extolled across her appealing adolescent features.

"Buffy?" Giles questioned, laying a paternal hand upon her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Buffy shook her blond pony-tailed head, as if she was endeavoring to shake out the perplexity that had all of a sudden beleaguered her. "I've seen him," she at long last rejoined pointing at the sketch. "He was at The Bronze a few weeks ago and then last night I bumped into him at the last stop on my patrol route. You know I really didn't get the vamp-vibe off of him."

"That would be because that was not him you provoked," Wesley butted into the tête-à-tête. "Angelus is The Scourge of Europe and not of small town USA."

"And I'm telling you that it was him," Buffy responded as her equanimity began to wear out. "He was standing right in front of me. Hell, we even had a conversation - it was a bizarre one - but it happened."

A perplexing look crossed Giles' expression, but he repressed it virtually as swiftly as it had come on. "Buffy, I am sure that Wesley is correct -"

"You are?" Buffy and Wesley chorused in more or less comical synchronization.

"Of course. I am moderately definite that if that gentleman you stumbled upon last night had been Angelus, you would not be standing here telling us about it. He is not known as The Slayer Killer for nothing."

A does of glacial apprehension ran down the complete length of Buffy's spine as it was mentioned, "Slayer Killer?"

"That is something that does not concern you. I suggest that you get on with your training session with Mr. Giles while I give my report to the Council."

Buffy gawped at the most modern - and unsolicited - edition to her slayage team like he was a mental patient who had just escaped from a adjacent asylum. "Hello, I am *the slayer*. How exactly does the whole Slayer Killer thing not concern me?" However she did not obtain an riposte because Wesley had already walked away from her and secured himself within the confines of Giles' office. Turning to her watcher she asked, "Giles?"

"We'll confer about it when and if it becomes germane, Buffy. For now I think that we should get started on our session. How about we break out the crossbow?"

"Whatever," she retorted heaving a sigh with dissatisfaction, Giles only brought out the crossbow when he wanted to distract her. Wordlessly she declared that she was going to get the answers that she was in the hunt for, even if she had to get close to the source to get them.

* * *

"Quentin, did you not pay attention to me?" Wesley said as stridently as he dared when he received nothing but stillness from the other end of his call. His voice was barely above the level of a murmur in fear that the slayer would overhear what he was saying, after all it was only a wall that separated them and she was holding a weapon. "That Buffy swears that she has seen Angelus."

A soft groan was heard, "We were fearful of this. He vanished from our surveillance very nearly six months ago and we had been incapable of tracking his location. Sorry to say we did not foresee his traveling to the Hellmouth."

"What shall I do?" 

"Naught. We will send the supplementary slayer and her watcher to your locality - for support purposes. We cannot expect Miss. Summers to take on both The Mayor of Sunnydale and Angelus at the same time, despite her talents."

"Fine. When should I anticipate the others appearance?"

Quentin Travers countered instantaneously, leaving no doubt that he had been looking forward to this possible occurrence. "Within the next few days - maybe a week at utmost. I shall leave it to you to enlighten the slayer and her watcher of this. Until your next report."

"Adieu Quentin," Wesley managed to whisper before he was cut off.

As he lay the phone down in it's cradle, he looked out of the undersized glass windowpane that was contained within the solid wood door at where Buffy was shooting crossbow bolts at a target. Sighing he got up from his seat and left the virtual protection of the office to enlighten them of the impending coming of the other slayer and her watcher.

* * *

TBC...


	3. It's Always Research

Part 3

Over the next few days Buffy grew exceedingly perturbed with her lack of success at finding out anything about the vampire Angelus - The Scourge of Europe and reputed Slayer Killer. All of the books, academic journals and articles about him and his vampiric genesis had without explanation vanished from within the library walls. What pissed her off for the most part was that she was undecided if it had been Giles, trying to safeguard her from whatever horrors that they may contain or Wesley, to a great extent trying to emphasize his council given authority; whom had been answerable for the disappearance. Either way she was becoming more and more desperate to know about him and what he could possibly be up to in good old Sunnydale - not that she couldn't guess.

She confided her dissatisfaction over the entire circumstances to Willow, which as you would expect sent her best friend into research mode on the internet. Willow's frenzied search was not in vain as she had discovered an great quantity of information about his European activities since he had been turned - killings, other odious crimes and unsurprisingly his childer - but what Buffy was interested in, the Slayer Killings, there was not even the most brief of indications.

Deciding against going to the probable source - at least for the moment - Buffy managed to convince Willow that there was only one way for them to gather the much needed information. They needed to break into the library and Giles' office to steal it. Even though Willow was to say the least tentative about the moral consequence of such an exploit, she agreed and also dragged Oz into their plan. So the trio waited with irritation for their opportunity and it came on a night where Wesley had plans and Giles was preoccupied by a date with Jenny Calendar.

Leaving Oz as their lookout in the school parking lot, Buffy and Willow snuck into the inner recesses of the library - using the keys that Giles had given Buffy for early morning training purposes - and entered Giles' office to look around. Searching every single part of the extraordinarily clean office, the duo in the long run found one volume of the watcher diaries with a few entries - leading up to the slayer's eventual termination - about Angelus. Disenchanted about the derisory findings, Buffy had Willow photocopy the pages and then they left the building.

After Willow and Oz dropped her off at her house, Buffy went up to her room and looked over the watcher's observations on her antagonist. They were ambiguous and not very constructive, but they gave her an indication about what the slayer's - Marianna Davis - last few days/nights were like. Mind games, torture and then mercifully the peaceful and pain-free slumber of death. Buffy was beyond doubt not comforted by the epigrammatic and callous notations made by the watcher, but all the same she added them to her growing pile of information on Angelus before she - as ill at ease as she was - headed out into the darkness for her nightly patrol.

* * *

Angelus was feeling agitated and bored to tears, the town's demonic population had barely put up any resistance to his take over and it was much too soon to begin his plans for the agile slayer. He supposed that he could seek out Spike and Drusilla, but candidly they were in simple terms not worth the struggle right now - in particular Spike.

With nothing better to do, he decided to get a bite to eat and maybe - with a small amount good luck - he would be able to clandestinely watch the slayer in combat, as he had on numerous instances since meeting with her. He was forced - if only in his own mind - to admit that he had a rancorous esteem for her fighting capabilities which were undeniably not the customary council moves that were taught to each of the prior slayers.

Once he was out in the night hunting it only took him a few minutes to find a most enthusiastic and appetizing victim and only a few moments more for him to lure her away from the crowd and into a shadowy, deserted alley where he proceeded to thrall, fuck and kill the injudicious brunette. However it did not gratify him as it once would have, now he longed for somewhat more. What he sought after - considered necessary - was a meal that put up a scuffle before they died, as an alternative to been willingly escorted to the slaughter. 

If he was to be candid with his inner-self, Angelus was going to have to acknowledge that what he in actuality sought - no needed - was the slayer. Not for his dinner, even though he was convinced that sooner rather than later she would die by his hand, he just wanted her. It was an atrocity; he was Angelus the Scourge of Europe and he was expected to kill his mortal adversary and not want to mate with the little bitch. But for some immeasurable raison d'être he was drawn to this one and for much more than her capability as a slayer. She had something that none of the previous slayer's had possessed - a spunk, an attitude that set her apart from all who had come before her and all those yet to be called - and he was finding that the combination was irresistible. 

Incensed with the direction of his thoughts, Angelus grabbed the first person that came along and snapped their flimsy neck before tearing into the victim's gorge with a lesser amount of finesse than a newly risen fledgling. Leaving the two bodies exposed in the alley, he meandered out into the darkness of night and ran immediately into the little redheaded companion of the slayer. Going against his natural feeling he did not kill her where she stood and as he walked away he persuaded himself that he had done so only because he had yet to begin to play the game with his slayer and death just was not as much fun until he did so.

He all of a sudden found himself passing by the lair where Dru and Spike were purportedly hiding out in and an evil simper crossed his handsome expression. Surreptitiously he entered the old derelict building and watched his supercilious and intractable childer intermingle. The two of them looked despondent over something - or someone - and from the whispers around the demonic community they deserved to do so, failing time after time against the slayer.

Stepping out into the candlelight that lit the room and into Drusilla's line of sight, but was caught off guard by her corollary to his presence. Instead of her customary cry of daddy and running into his arms, this time she merely stood there staring at him looking all insubstantial with astonishment. Spike however was not so closed mouthed however and voiced his opinion loud and clear.

"Fucking hell if it isn't Peaches," Spike said sardonically as he pulled Drusilla towards him and away from her sire. "I'd heard that you had reared your ugly head around here."

"I gather that is why you and Dru have been avoiding me," Angelus answered with a smirk.

Spike replied with an evils smile of his own, "We haven't been avoiding you, you immense poof. It's just you've been so occupied with sniffing around the slayer to notice little old us." When Angelus growled he continued, "Since you have all of a sudden decided to honor us with your presence, I figure she kicked you ass."

Angelus continued to growl as his chocolate brown eyes began to glow amber and his face contorted into it's vampiric form. "The only ass around here that is going to be kicked is your own if you are not quiet. You have forgotten your place boy."

"Big fucking deal."

With calculated moves, Angelus stalked towards Spike and Drusilla with an unnerving gleam in his amber glowing eyes. "Don't worry boy, I am about to teach you - both of you - what the fucking deal is."

* * *

When Buffy and Willow stepped into the library the next morning before classes began for the day they were flabbergasted to find that it was empty except for the presence of Xander and Cordelia at the copious oak table. Looking around as she dumped her stuff on the table, Buffy did not see hide nor hair of her watcher or his superfluous subordinate.

"Where's Giles?" she asked after succinctly greeting her friend and his so-called girlfriend. "It's not like him not to be here."

"Don't know," Xander answered with his arm slung ever so nonchalantly around Cordelia's shoulders. "The G-man wasn't here when we arrived either."

Cordelia sighed as she examined her flawlessly manicured nails. "Who cares? I'm missing cheerleading practice right now."

"So why don't you leave then," Willow muttered under her breath so softly that even Buffy barely heard it.

The twin doors to the library all of a sudden without any warning swung open and the two missing Brits entered the room carrying weighty-looking armfuls of old musty books. The duo placed their bounty onto the checkout counter before Giles turned to address the teenagers seated at the table.

"Good morning," he acknowledged them with a smile. "In case any of you were curious, these are some supplementary sources of information on ascensions."

"Oh joy. Even more research," Buffy piped up acerbically.

"Not for you. Your training regime must be increased, along with your nightly patrol time."

Buffy scrunched up her face in repugnance, "But -"

"No buts," Giles cut her off. "The Mayor's ascension - into God knows what - could occur at any given moment. We must be prepared."

"It's kind of hard to be prepared when you have absolutely no idea what is coming," Buffy muttered cheesed off with her augmented schedule.

Giles sighed wounded by her attitude, "I - we are trying."

Buffy realized her blunder and conceded, "I know."

Willow out of the blue commenced jumping up and down as a inspiration suggested itself to her. "Oh, what about Angelus?" she squealed and at Buffy's austere glare she counteracted it. "I mean the fake Angelus guy."

"Yes," Wesley at long last spoke. "What about that particular vampire? Have you seen him since?"

Perplexed by Wesley's enthusiasm on the subject matter, Buffy spoke, "No -"

"Terrific."

"But I have felt him," Buffy continued on undisturbed by Wesley's disturbance.

"Felt him?" Giles questioned staring at his slayer. "Like you feel the others?"

Buffy took a seat next to Xander and glanced unswervingly at Giles, "No, it's different. When a typical everyday vampire is around it's a warning I feel, but when he's around it's - I'm not sure how to describe what I feel. I guess it's more or less like a tingling along my spine, over my skin - an awareness."

The school bell shrieked an indicator that the first class of the day was due to begin and with some relief Giles sent the teenagers away. The break from them would give him time to gather his thoughts over what his charge had just revealed to him. Was he in fact wrong? Was it actually Angelus who was waltzing around Sunnydale and creating an awareness within the easily influenced teenaged slayer? He certainly hoped not.

Giles' own father had been the watcher in charge of the last slayer to have the misfortune to run into Angelus. Giles himself had not been more than fourteen at the time, but he could still remember Annabelle. Her pale skin, luminescent red hair and sapphire colored eyes, she had been the object of many of his personal teenaged fantasies. Regrettably her delicate beauty was not what his most vivid recollection associated with the girl, it was his father's melancholy at her death and his consequential immobilization of emotions - he had then and still had now shut everything and everyone out of his life and heart.

Pushing the terrible thoughts from his muddled mind, he gathered up the large pile of books that he had just put down and struggled towards his private office. Not knowing what else to do with himself, Wesley quickly followed suit aware that once he did so they could do nothing but research and hope for the best.

* * *

TBC...


	4. Sister Slayer?

**_Part 4_**

The repetitive uniformity of patrol was a marvelous sleeping pill, more than ever when there was not even the dumbest of fledglings around to slay. Plonking herself down on the nearby gravestone, Buffy sighed audibly and endeavored to fight off the yawn that was threatening to divulge her boredom with the task at hand, the duties consigned to her by a wretched twist of fate.

Hearing the familiar sounds of a fight coming across the breeze from somewhere in close proximity, she jumped up on the spur of the moment and almost stumbled from her modification of velocity. Breaking into a run and going as expeditiously as her slayer abilities would allow her, she reached the periphery of the fighting and saw something that shocked her down to her very core.

In the clearing was a brunette, clad in strips - if you could even call them that - of leather and she was kicking the undead shit out of some indiscriminate vampire. It did not take much for Buffy to construe that this was her sister slayer, Faith. Somehow Buffy felt disenchanted, not with Faith's fighting style - that was more than sufficient despite her unruliness -, but because she seemed to be the total opposite of herself.

Sinking further back into the adjacent shadows as she decided against revealing herself to the new girl. Part of her decision was based on the fact that Faith could evidently handle the situation, but the rest was unadulterated vanity. Next to her sister slayer Buffy felt like a ten-year-old in her white tank top and navy blue track pants.

Turning rapidly around Buffy headed back towards her house and allowed herself to be distracted by her random thoughts, never did she notice the two lustrous amber eyes that followed her every movement. Before too long had passed she was hoisting herself up the large tree that grew ever-so opportunely outside her room and quietly - as to not wake her mother - she made her way to her bedroom window. As she began to climb through, she placed her hand on the window sill where it encountered something cold and metallic in origin.

With alacrity she entered her room and got her first good look at the item she had inadvertently touched. It was a delicate gold chain, so emaciated that it was almost like intertwining of a spider's web and attached to it was an adornment. Not a cross, but something comparable in shape. Buffy was as you would expect confused as to how such a beautiful and yet inexplicable item had arrived on her window sill, but there was nothing that she could do about it that night.

Placing the extraordinary necklace in her jewellery box for the remnants of the night, Buffy didn't bother even stripping off her patrol outfit; as an alternative she climbed into her comfortable double bed and fell into a deep sleep as soon as her head touched her feather pillow. She did not notice that she was under intense examination still by the barer of the gift.

* * *

Angelus was feeling reasonably self-satisfied after seeing his gift acknowledged so enthusiastically by the slayer - hadn't her watcher ever warned her about accepting the inexplicable, after all you never know what sort of demon might be out there waiting to lay claim to that nubile young flesh. It had taken him quite a few days, but he had diffidently come to acknowledge that providence - and the immeasurably dim-witted Watcher's Council - had presented him with an extraordinary opportunity, a slayer with the capability to wield unlimited power. To own someone - even a common human - with all that potential could guarantee his period of influence for all of perpetuity.

Sighing a thoroughly superfluous sigh, Angelus unenthusiastically moved away from the slayer and her emanations of raw power; heading off in the direction of town for his accustomed dinner of a vapid high schooler. As he walked the fleeting distance into the centre of Sunnydale's so-called township, he saw no one but old ladies and a bunch of frat boys hanging around. As he was not an obtuse vampire, Angelus headed for the one place he knew would be crawling with over-sexed horny teenagers; The Bronze.

Upon entering the establishment he noticed that some of the more inexperienced vampires had chosen to congregate near the club's foremost exit and he held back the malicious hilarity at their fledgling mistake caused within him. Instead he simply took a seat at an empty table and observed the room with a hunter's gaze, searching for the perfect victim.

It did not take him long to find one - his accustomed type - with lengthy dark hair and pale almost translucent skin. He watched her in soundless deliberation of what the next few hours would bring and how pleasant her fear and her unqualified terror would taste as her blood rolled across his waiting tongue.

In due course he tired of playing the watcher and made his silver-tongued line of attack, it took him less than two minutes to learn everything that he would ever need to know about her. Her name was Lucy Miles and she was a senior at Sunnydale High, just like his diminutive slayer. All of a sudden an inspiration struck him; he could kill two birds with one stone as it were; have his dinner and give another present to Buffy.

It took the bare minimum amount of time for him to talk the gormless young girl into leaving with him and he took her to the old Crawford Street Mansion - his most recent abode. After the de rigueur phony seduction, he moved her into his bedroom and sadistically knocked her out with one of the many sculptures he had collected in his long vampiric unlife. Then he simply stripped her naked and chained the young girl to his bed, sitting there beside her, awaiting her awakening with immense anticipation.

* * *

After waking up much later than she had intended, Buffy raced through breakfast and dressed in the first matching items of clothing she found - a pink and black designed short-sleeved top and black mini skirt. Grabbing her aging Prada book bag, she suddenly paused and without thinking put on the mysterious gift she had received, before she dashed off for another day of torture at Sunnydale High.

She made it to her first class precisely as the bell rang and tried to a great extent to pay attention all the way through the mind-numbing and to some extent ineffectual class. By the time the lunch bell rang, she was more than ready for a break away from what passed as learning, so when she met up with Willow and Xander outside the library she was relieved for the sense of normalcy it gave her as they entered Giles' domain.

Her relief did not last long because when they walked in they saw Giles, Wesley, an eye-catching lady and a pissed-off techno-pagan seated at the library table. The three teenagers stared at the woman and Giles as they talked; more or less finishing each others sentences. It was one of the scariest things Buffy had ever witnessed and she had seen some unnatural shit since her calling.

Suddenly Giles looked up and smiled at his teenage charges, "Good afternoon. I see that you finally have all arrived."

"What?" Xander countered stunned by Giles' assertion. "This is the usual time we show up."

"Unless you want Buffy to come in earlier," Willow added trying to be helpful.

Giles flushed bright red with embarrassment, "Yes, well -"

The woman stood up and cut Giles' next avowal off. "Then let us begin. I am Andrea Cartwright and I am Faith's watcher."

"Well, duh," Buffy muttered under her breath.

Andrea continued either not hearing Buffy's derision or not caring in the slightest. "Faith is resting right now, but she will be here this afternoon around half past three for training. I suggest that we adjourn until then."

"Agreed," Giles answered as Jenny elbowed him in the stomach. "Come back here immediately after classes let out."

"Maybe we have plans, G-man. Did you ever think of that?" Xander enquired his young face flushed with exasperation.

Giles smiled more or less evilly, "Because you never do. Why should today be any different?"

* * *

Less than an hour later Andrea walked into the undersized hotel room that she was sharing with Faith and found her charge right where she had left her earlier, lying across the double bed and snoring lightly. She shrugged out of her maroon wool blazer and stared down at Faith, remarking the changes in her since they had met less than a year beforehand.

The watcher that had been in charge of Faith up to that time had been Ronald Anderson-Smyth and he had audaciously used Faith for his own sexual indulgence since she was twelve and ordered into his care. As you would expect when the council had discovered his perversion they had without more ado removed Faith from his care, regrettably by that time the girl had endured nearly six years of this atrocious treatment.

Andrea could not help but wonder what long-term emotional effects it would have on the girl, besides the observable. Faith's wild, sexy clothing and her widespread promiscuity were of course signs of the trauma, but as of late Faith's activities had toned down to a round about socially tolerable level. Slipping off her shoes, she grabbed her watcher's journal set to record her observations of the watcher Giles and his slayer, Buffy while she awaited Faith's awakening.

* * *

TBC... 


End file.
